‘The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.’ A throwaway line, uttered by one of the low life characters in the film The Usual Suspects (1995), may actually provide a hint to understanding the immense, and unexamined, popularity of so-called true crime writing, at least according to Carl Jung. Since the Middle Ages, wrote Jung, the devil’s role has devolved to evil-doers in human form ‘to whom we gratefully surrender our shadows. With what pleasure, for instance, we read newspaper reports of crime! A bona fide criminal becomes a popular figure because he unburdens in no small degree the conscience of his fellow men, for now they know once more where the evil is to be found’.